Stories from 13 September 2011
Denmark: Turkish Flag on Right-Wing Candidate's “Sharia-Land” Ad
Amila Bosnae re-posts a parliamentary election campaign ad of “a candidate for the xenophobic (and powerful) Danish People’s Party” and explains: “The caption on top reads ‘Sharia-land or Sjælland?’ – Sjælland is Zealand, the big island in the eastern part of Denmark with the capital Copenhagen. For some reason they...
Cuba: House Agents
Iván García blogs about ‘house agents’: “Those who — under the table — dedicate themselves to transmit trades, purchases, or sales of houses in Cuba. A business where there isn’t anyone to tell the tale.”
Trinidad & Tobago: Intellectual Property Guideline
Mark Lyndersay on yet another instance of copyright infringement: “If an image, or a video, or a story or any other intellectual property is still owned by its creator, whether or nor it's being actively exploited, the right to make use of that work remains with its creator until a...
Cuba: Repressive Action
Bloggers chronicle the latest wave of repression in Cuba, here, here and here.
Trinidad & Tobago: Hair & Now
Struck by a report in which a detained man's hair was shaved by soldiers, Attillah Springer says: “This shouldn’t be the story that gets you the most vexed out of the whole state of emergency farce…it's just hair. That is why Samson was destroyed when Delilah cut his. It’s just...
Barbados: Perception of Corruption
Keltruth Corp. takes issue with a Transparency International report claiming “Barbados is less corrupt than the UK or the US”. The blogger “holds the opinion that corruption in Barbados is at a similar abysmal level to the other countries in the region, like Trinidad and Jamaica. However the situation in...
Egypt: Turkey's Response to Kurds Questioned as Erdogan Speaks in Cairo
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's speech about the Palestinian bid for a statehood at the Arab League was translated online live by members of social networking sites, namely Twitter, for those who did not speak Arabic or Turkish. Ruwayda Mustafah reports.
Morocco: Multiple Arrests Against Activists
There has been a sudden surge in arrests among pro-democracy activists and online campaigners in Morocco in recent days. Three have occurred in the past week alone. Little has been reported in the press and it took bloggers to report on the arrests for the mainstream media in Morocco to pick up on the stories.
Guatemala: 2011 General Elections in Antigua
Rudy Girón at AntiguaDailyPhoto posts a photo slide show of “the election process in La Antigua Guatemala”. Rudy also describes the voting process, reporting that Sunday's elections in Antigua “progressed in a calm and quiet family atmosphere. It almost felt like a civic party.”
Honduras: Radio Journalist Killed
“Thursday [September 8] a reporter for Radio Uno in San Pedro was murdered […] The reporter, Medardo Flores, was part of the finance section of the Frente Amplio de Resistencia Popular (FARP), the political wing of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP) [National Popular Resistance Front] […] Porfirio Lobo...
Lebanon: Empowering Migrant Workers With Language
A community of enthusiastic young people in Beirut, The Migrant Workers Task Force, are working to support foreign domestic workers in Lebanon whose living and working conditions are often desperately unfair. Thalia Rahme reports.
Argentina: Seven Die and Hundreds Injured After Bus and Trains Collide
Seven people died and more than 100 were injured when a bus and two trains crashed in Flores, Buenos Aires on Tuesday morning, September 13. Twitter users in Argentina are using the hashtag #Flores to report on the accident and share reactions.
Hungary: Fall 2011 Legislative Season
The Contrarian Hungarian reviews the most important items on the Hungarian parliament's legislative agenda of Fall 2011.
Iran: The” Crane” was cleared of charges
Greencity reports that Akbar Amini, the man who climbed atop a crane in a show of protest on 14th of February, was cleared of charges. Akbar’s cell mate says Akbar is known as the “Crane” among other prisoners
Hungary: “The Constitution's Table”
The Contrarian Hungarian writes about a new regulation that requires “every municipal council in Hungary [to] set up a table to display the country’s newly enacted constitution”: “The table must be covered by glass, and the constitution on the table must be opened on page 28 […]. Next to the...
Iran: Opposition leader and “News of a Kidnapping”
Cafe 35 blog writes Mir Hussein Mousavi, one of opposition leaders who has been under house for seven months, told to his daughters ” if you want to know my situation, read Gabriel García Márquez‘s ” News of a Kidnapping.”
China: Now With America's Attention Back
Not all netizens took this past weekend—a holiday in China—as a chance to confess a feeling of shame at things they said upon learning of the attacks on the United States ten years ago, but many did. Writer Yang Hengjun, who has written New York and the USA into his novels, shares something similar.
China: 8 Ways That Sina Weibo Will Shut You Up
Steven Millward translated Chinese tech-blogger Jason Ng's summary of Sina Weibo's censorship principles at Penn Olson.
Korea: WikiLeaks Reveals More on South Korean Policy, Rather than North Korean Realities
Leon V. Sigal from 38 North site posted an interesting analysis on the WikiLeaks cable traffic between Seoul and Washington. The author stressed that the cables shed less light on North Korea than they do on South Korea’s policy toward the North.
North Korea: Inside the House of Upper-class North Koreans
A net user ID:CheeseNoodle posted photos of a North Korean house in South Korean citizen journalist website, Wiki Tree. The house, which belongs to upper-class people, is equipped with a flat-screen TV, electric devices and just like any other households, portraits of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung in one corner.
Philippines: Verified Twitter Accounts of Government Agencies
As of this writing, the list of verified twitter accounts of government agencies in the Philippines monitors 22 departments.
